y in an
atmosphere of oppression and cruelty. Every page of her history is a
tableau of bloodshed and torture. The narrow winding channel which
leads from the open sea to the harbor passes through low hills and
broad meadows covered with rank verdure, cocoanut groves, and little
fishing hamlets. Thrifty laurels, palms with their graceful plumes of
foliage, and intensely green bananas line the way, with here and there
upon the banks a pleasant country house in the midst of a pretty
garden of flowering shrubs. So close is the shore all the while that
one seems to be navigating upon the land, gliding among trees and over
greensward rather than on blue water. Presently we pass a sharp angle
of the hills into a broad, sheltered bay, and before us lies the
quaint, rambling old city of Santiago de Cuba, built upon a hillside,
like Tangier in Africa, and nearly as Oriental as that capital of
Morocco. The first most conspicuous objects to meet the eye are the
twin towers of the ancient cathedral which have withstood so many
earthquakes. The weather-beaten old quartermaster on our forecastle
applies the match to his brass twelve-pounder, awaking a whole
broadside of echoes among the mountains, the big chain rushes swiftly
through the hawse-hole, and the ship swings at her anchor in the
middle of the picturesque bay.

A boat was promptly secured with which to land at this ancient city,
founded by Velasquez. From the moment one touches the shore a sense of
being in a foreign land forces itself upon the new-comer. The
half-unintelligible language, the people, the architecture, the
manners, the vegetation, even the very atmosphere and the intensity of
the sunshine, are novel and attractive. It is easy to convey our
partial impressions of a new place, however unique it may be, but not
our inward sensations. The former are tangible, as it were, and may be
depicted; the latter are like atmospheric air, which cannot be seen,
but is felt. The many-colored, one-story houses of Santiago are
Moorish in architecture, ranged in narrow streets, which cross each
other at right angles with considerable regularity, but with roadways
in an almost impassable condition, lined with sidewalks of ten or
fifteen inches in width. These thoroughfares were once paved with
cobblestones, but are now characterized by dirt and neglect, a stream
of offensive water constantly percolating through them, in which
little naked children are at play. No wonder that th